June 23, 2015 -- In terms of popular movie entertainment, there aren't very many original ideas. “Inside Out” is an exception to the rule. Well, it isn't totally original, but it is a new way of showing the life of the mind.

Woody Allen's “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid of Ask” had a segment with a similar idea about a “control central” in the brain (staffed by Burt Reynolds, among others) but that was quite different in its own way. There is no harmonica-playing reproductive cell, or other people inside other parts of the body in “Inside Out.”

This Disney/Pixar comedy very cleverly depicts the different emotions at play in the brain with different characters, joy, sadness, anger, etc. All of these emotions need to work together in a well-balanced mind, but in this mind, joy has taken over, creating a superficially happy little girl, Riley Anderson, who seems to be in denial about how she really feels about moving to a new city.

Riley is under a lot of emotional pressure in the story. Her family leaves Minnesota to live in San Francisco. Riley misses her friends and misses playing on her hockey team. Her parents are under a lot of pressure as well. Business and financial problems are stressing them, and they are depending on the normally upbeat Riley to help keep their spirits up. It is a lot to ask from a little girl.

When Joy and Sadness leave the control room to try and rescue some vital core memories, they leave the control room in the hands of Fear, Anger and Disgust, who do their best to keep Riley functioning normally, but they can't hold it together, causing Riley to run away from home.

Joy and Sadness learn that they have to work together to save Riley. Joy had been trying to isolate Sadness and keep her from influencing Riley's behavior, but over time, along their journey to restore the core memories, Joy learns that Sadness has something positive to contribute to Riley's behavior.

As Joy and Sadness wander through the winding pathways of long term memory, imagination land, and the twisted, misshapen, disjointed part of the mind where abstract ideas are expressed, they see sings of trouble. They also run across an old childhood friend, Bing Bong, Riley's imaginary friend from years ago, who helps them along their way through the subconscious and other far flung corners of the mind.

This is a very imaginative journey and a very interesting story. It gets a little confusing at first when we start seeing characters inside the minds of Riley's mother and father. Some of the funnier parts of the story include a song that Riley can't get out of her head, and depictions of characters inside the minds of cats and dogs.

The film's message is about psychological health. I imagine that quite a few psychology papers will be written about this movie. I don't know if the film's thesis is right, but it is interesting and entertaining. It rates a B.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2015 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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